JR's Korner of BillyBob's Garage

WHAT'S NEW is a chronological listing of updates to the BillyBob site.

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS was the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I could accomplish without a garage up until the summer of 2010 when I finally got enough warehouse space to work in. Now, it also includes the continuing work on BillyBob in the shop.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PARTS SHOP The Parts Shop is a repository of How-To articles. Things that I have done over and over enough times to have developed a procedure. This gives me a checklist and saves brain cells.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

14. Loose Cannon, a tale of engines, junkyards and dogs

"That's my steak, Valance!" I hear myself say. Jimmy Stewart is crawling around on the floor and Lee Marvin, six-shooter in hand, stands facing me. I hear the sound of a bell . . . Wait, there are no bells in this dream. Jimmy and Lee are fading into mist as I realize that the bell I'm hearing is my doorbell and I have a headache. Now it's coming back; I was at a rock and roll club last night listening to a three-piece band from Buffalo with a dynamite Bass player named Billy.

The bell is still ringing triggering spasms of pain! I've got to get the door open and "kill" the perpetrator. The perpetrator is John Cope, Captain John to his friends. John and I are mates - shipmates as we are both former members of the world's most modern nuclear Navy. John greets me with "Get dressed. We're gonna go get an engine"

John has an old Chevrolet pick-up of numerous years. It started life as a 1967 long wheelbase stepside model with small window cab. As time moves on John replaces various parts with whatever Chevrolet part is available. On this morning it has a '71 cab with running lights, an oak hand made bed and a transmission with a "rock crusher" first gear from a 1 ton Chevy dump. John wants more torque so he found a 292 truck engine to replace the existing 230 engine. John has found a little known salvage yard in the backwoods coal country of southwest Pennsylvania that just happens to have the right engine.

I throw on some clothes, down two aspirin and head out the door. I climb into John's truck being careful not to place my feet on the cab floor lest they pass on through. It's also not possible to put my feet on the floor as the space is occupied by all manner of things. A true trucker never, but never cleans out the cab.

The Capt'n fires it up. There is an exhaust leak that causes the truck to sound like a cross between an old two cylinder John Deere farm tractor and a Caterpillar D2. It is a pleasing sound, the sound of Character. We stop at Micky-D's for coffee and head out. The route takes us through several little known county roads that are poorly maintained with no signs to reassure you that you are going the right way. Some of these roads lead us to conclude that four-wheel drive would be required for lesser men than we. John and I both know that you can go anywhere with two wheel drive, all ya have to do is know how to drive. Keep out of ruts, keep up momentum and keep a shovel for digging out when you do get stuck.

We round a bend and discover the salvage yard. The salvage yard occupies part of a hillside and surrounded by an old, falling down chain link fence. Old vehicles of every type fill the yard in no particular order. Off to one side are a couple of old semi trailer boxes set on the ground. A single workman in a grubby worn-out set of coveralls is the only person in sight. He is working on the firewall of a late fifties Ford five ton truck.

This salvage yard is, perhaps, the last example how salvage yards looked and operated before the country gave up the concept of personal responsibility and became lawsuit crazy. Today you cannot wander around the yard looking for that treasure you need because you might trip over, say, an old tailpipe and immediately sue for pain and suffering. We have given up another freedom out of the fear of financial ruin. It's our own fault, however. We sit on juries and when we award 1.5 million dollars to an old lady because she spills hot coffee on herself, we deserve what we get.

The man, I don't remember his name but I'll call him Bob, continues to work not showing the least interest in John and Me. John walks over to Bob and says "I called about the engine." Bob continues to work without acknowledging John's statement. He seems bent on removing some item from the Ford's firewall. John, not one known for his shyness, repeats the statement but much louder reminding me that I still have the headache. Still no response. Soon Bob manages to remove the item. He gets out from under the hood of Ford, silently walks twenty-five feet and gets on an old Ford Jubilee farm tractor and cranks the engine. It's about forty degrees this morning and the tractor's battery barely turns the engine over. It doesn't start. Bob utters his first words "It won't start." And with that Bob returns to the Ford truck and starts to remove some other item from the firewall. Well, at least the man can talk.

John and I review our options. This doesn't take long because aren't many of them. We decide to roam around the yard until such time as Bob is moved to action or becomes more talkative. This is not a hardship for us however. In fact we have achieved Nirvana. As we walk around the yard naming the years and models of various vehicles we regale each other with car tales and sea stories (remember, we're sailors temporally on land for the rest of our lives). I spot a pick-up bed that turns out to be a '54 or early'55 Chevy six-foot bed. You can tell because in '54 the top edge of the bedside became horizontal instead of angled and the rear fender shape is embossed into the bedside. I make a mental note to return for the bed at a later time.

I hear the tractor start. I know it's the tractor without looking because my uncle had the same model. We worked Granddad's farm with that tractor in my youth. I would know the sound anywhere. Bob has raised the front lift and is heading over to one of the semi trailer boxes. The tractor's lift does not have a bucket; it has two forks similar to a forklift truck. Bob stops near one the trailer boxes, gets off the tractor and opens a four foot wide door in the side of the box. Inside are several engines and lots of other prized odds and ends. He climbs back on the tractor and very carefully positions the tractor so that one fork is extending through the door as far as possible. Then, without warning, Bob pops the tractor's clutch almost driving the other fork through the side of the trailer box. "John", I say offering sage advice "Perhaps we should stand back fifty feet or so for safety."

Bob still has not said anything since our first exchange. He truly is a man of few words. He carefully positions the tractor again and this time manages to get off it without lurching forward. Manhandling the object of John's desire into position under the fork that is sticking into the trailer's door, Bob throws a chain around the motor and over the fork. He gets back on the tractor and lifts the motor with the loader but, because the fork is pointing slightly down, the chain slides forward and off the end of the fork and the engine comes crashing down! Not being stingy with my advice, "John!" I say, "Maybe we should go elsewhere for the engine." John ignores me.

Bob's got the engine on the fork this time having tilted the fork up slightly and is now depositing it in the bed of John's truck. "She's froze up now. Just fill the cylinders with kerosene and hang her upside down for a few days. She'll break free." Bob does have the gift of language after all. John pays him and we head for home. On the way home I try to convince John to do an engine rebuild but John opts for Bob's advice.

John drops me at the house where I spend the afternoon watching "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" on TBS. The movie seems eerily familiar to me.

Now, I told you that story so I could tell this one.

Even though I had done a mini rebuild on the 235 it was obvious to me that sooner or later I'd either have to rebuild it right or replace it. John eventually installed the 292 we got from Bob leaving a perfectly good 230 cu in Chevy truck engine with no more than a couple hundred thousand miles on it. In comparison to my engine John's engine was just getting broke in. John and I sit down, talked a little turkey, drank a little Nelson's Blood (rum for you sand crabs), swapped a few more sea stories and agreed on one hundred fifty dollars for the engine, bell housing, clutch and three speed transmission. The transmission had been setting in John's garage ever since he replaced it with the dump truck transmission. It turned freely so he must have stored it with the gear case filled with kerosene.

John had made the engine swap in the equipment shed of a friend's farm and now his friend wanted John's old engine out of his equipment shed. Some people have no sense of humor. I met John at the farm on warm Saturday morning. John and a large German Shepard were there to meet me. John said "Don't worry about the dog, he can't bite." I've always been a dog guy so I wasn't worried but I wondered why a dog couldn't bite. "He chews rocks." John said. And with that John picked up a rock about the size of a grapefruit and threw it towards the barn. Sure enough, the dog bounded over and retrieved the rock. The dog's teeth were little round nubs from years of rock chewing. "If ya play with him be sure to pay attention to him because if you don't he'll drop the rock on your foot."

"Where's the engine?" I said changing the subject. "Back the truck in here." John said pointing the open shed door. "Engine's hanging on a two-fold." John said. A two-fold is a block and tackle, for you sand crabs. As I walked over to my truck I threw a rock and the dog went running after it. John laughed. I backed the truck into the shed as far as possible but because of other equipment in the shed, I was just able to get the back of the bed under the hanging engine. I got out of the truck and walked over to John who was busy lowering the engine into the pick-up bed. Suddenly I fell a sharp pain in my foot. I looked down; the rock I had thrown was on my foot and the dog was looking at me with anticipation. John laughed. "Next time, pick a smaller rock." John offered. I chose to throw the rock just as I got in the truck to drive home figuring that if the dog found it necessary to drop the rock on someone it would be John.

When I got home I realized that I had no way to get the engine off the truck. I didn't want to just push or pull it off the bed as it would come crashing down on the floor and maybe be damaged. I didn't have a two-fold either. Then I thought why take it off the bed at all. The engine wasn't hurting anything by staying in the bed. I had no plans to haul anything. I'd have an excuse not to haul anything for anyone else. Today, of course, this isn't a problem. Everyone has a pick-up but when I got the old Chevy I got lots of requests from people who needed a truck but were too cheap to buy their own. Finally, the engine weight would improve traction in the winter. I wasn't driving the truck in the winter but what difference does that make?

Several months went by. John gives me a call. "There's a '53 long bed for sale down on New Texas Road." John said. "I'll be right over." I jumped in the truck, picked up John and headed for New Texas Road. We drove up and down the road three times and couldn't find the place. All of a sudden John yells "There it is!" John spotted the truck's front fender though a grape arbor. I slam on the brakes! WHAM!!! "Shit!" I yell, "Someone rear ended me." I get out of truck carefully composing myself so I can chew this guy a new asshole. There's no one there.

I had forgotten the engine that was at the back of the bed. The engine was now at the front of the bed. Once again, John laughed! Good thing I like John otherwise I'd need to find another Navy veteran to swap sea stories with.

Within a week I bought a 1-ton chain hoist, mounted it on the steel beam in my garage and lifted the engine out of the truck. The engine spent the next several years in the garage corner. Eventually I gave the engine away as I had a professional engine rebuild job done on the 235 and didn't need the 230 any longer.

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Issued Friday January 19, 2001

Updated Friday April 20, 2018

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